Welcome to the second character-specific reaction to Joss Whedon’s THE AVENGERS. I’ve already written a 4,200+ word review of the film, but that wasn’t nearly enough to cover everything I wanted to talk about, so I’m going to write character-specific reactions to delve a bit deeper into the film.

Let me be clear about what’s coming: SPOILERS. Lots and lots of SPOILERS. Read ahead only if you’re cool with that. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want things ruined, come on back when you do.

The rise of Clark Gregg’s Agent Phil Coulson from being just a quiet guy in a business suit in IRON MAN trying to get a meeting with Tony Stark to an integral part of the AVENGERS franchise has been a joy to watch. Coulson has served as the liaison between Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the superheroes that Fury has his eye on as part of the Avengers Initiative program, and his appearances in AVENGERS-related films have become something fans look forward to seeing.

After IRON MAN, Agent Coulson went on to appear in two more pre-AVENGERS films: IRON MAN 2 and THOR. Coulson proved so popular (and fans enjoy the post-credits sequence so much) that Marvel Studios produced two short one shots for Coulson: “The Consultant” (located on the THOR Blu ray) and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer” (located on the CAPTAIN AMERICA disc).

Coulson works because of the juxtaposition of his middle management look with his nonchalant, all-business, in-control manner. The dude just comes off as totally unflappable, so while he looks like a company man he’s actually a bad-ass. He feels a bit like an Aaron Sorkin character dropped into the middle of this insane world; he doesn’t talk as much as a Sorkin, but he speaks with the same rapid confidence. At the same time, with the same words and the same actions, Agent Coulson feels like an intrinsic part of this world while retaining his status as an everyman outsider.

There are three big moments for Coulson in AVENGERS: his recruitment of Tony Stark, his adoration for Captain America, and his apparent death, that Fury uses to give the Avengers something to, well, avenge. What’s most striking about these three key moments in the film is that we see a different side of Coulson at each turn, and I give Whedon and Gregg credit for making each of these scenes something different that adds to my understanding and appreciation of the character.

After Loki has stolen the Tesseract from a SHIELD facility, Gregg comes to Stark Tower to recruit Stark/Iron Man into the recently reinstalled Avengers Initiative program. Clark Gregg has a wonderful way of giving Coulson the ability to play off everyone with aplomb, and I think that comes from Coulson’s confidence in himself. As Stark is off playing Iron Man, Jarvis (Paul Bettany) calls to inform him that Agent Coulson is on the phone. Stark blows him off, eventually coming back to Stark Tower, taking off his armor, and flirting with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) until Coulson overrides Jarvis’ system. Of all the actors in the AVENGERS film, Gregg is the actor who can best verbally spar with Stark because of his unflappability.

“Hello, you’ve received the Life Model Decoy of Tony Stark. Please leave a message,” Stark likes.

“It’s urgent,” Coulson replies over the phone, in no mood for Stark’s games.

“Then leave it urgently.”

At that moment, the elevator opens and Coulson exits. What follows is a very Sorkin-esque scene in which three separate conversations are going on at the same time: Coulson and Stark, Coulson and Pepper, and Pepper and Stark. Coulson is mostly all business with Stark, and mostly all personal with Pepper, while the Pepper/Stark conversation blends the personal with the business. I love how the three separate conversations play off one another. When Pepper greets Coulson by calling him, “Phil,” Stark says, “Phil? His first name is Agent,” and then won’t let go of the fact that Pepper knows (and uses) Coulson’s first name. Thanks to Pepper’s prodding, Coulson eventually gets Stark to agree to come in and we learn (in a quick drop of info) that he was seeing a cellist who has moved to Portland. It’s a fantastic scene between the three of them, and it’s just fun to watch and appreciate how Whedon’s dialogue works with three talented actors.

The second significant use of Coulson comes with his heretofore unrecognized hero worship of Captain America. For the first time, we see Coulson as something other than unflappable, as he can barely contain himself around Cap. “I watched you when you were sleeping,” he says when they’re in a SHIELD jet, and then realizes how creepy that sounds. He attempts to be less creepy by clarifying his actions: “I mean, I was, I was present while you were unconscious, from the ice,” and then adds what an honor it is to have Cap on board.

Cap is a little weirded out by this, feeling a bit uncomfortable by the hero worship, and is confused by the idea that he had trading cards, let alone that Agent Coulson collected all of them and would like Cap’s autograph. This unchecked adulation is a bit unnerving but also cool, and it helps to reinforce just how long Cap has been gone and the effect his life and death had one some people. (Though certainly not all, as I’ll get into in the Cap Reaction.)

Coulson’s Cap crush is used to set up his third significant contribution to AVENGERS: his own death.

Loki tricks Thor into the circular prison inside the Helicarrier and is in full gloat mode when Coulson arrives with a big honking weapon. Coulson and Loki have a brief verbal exchange, where Coulson gives the God of Lies a psychological takedown, telling him that he’ll never actually win because he lacks conviction. It’s a good bit, but Coulson was really addressing an image of Loki, and the actual Loki comes at Coulson from behind with his staff, stabbing him and dropping Coulson to the floor. The injury brings us back to the unflappable Coulson. “You’re going to lose,” he tells Loki. “It’s in your nature.”

And then he pulls the trigger and blasts Loki through the wall.

The injuries are severe, however, and the paramedics are called in. Coulson is aware the effect of his death can have, as he starts to tell Fury that the Avengers needed something like this, so they have, you know, something to avenge. He dies on the floor and Fury lets everyone know it. Back at the big table, Fury meets with Cap and Stark and tosses Coulson’s Captain America trading cards on the table. They’re soaked in blood and Fury lets them know that Coulson had the cards on him when he died, but “I guess he’ll never get them signed now.”

Coulson’s death has the desired effect and the Avengers soon steal a jet and take off for the big final battle. When they leave, SHIELD Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) lets Fury know that she knows Coulson kept those cards in his locker, not on him. I’ll talk about Fury’s manipulation more in the Reaction devoted to him, but I love this move on Fury’s part. It does unite the team, and Stark even references Coulson during the final battle with Loki, when he tells the Asgardian, “There was someone else you pissed off. His name was Phil.”

Coulson’s death hit the theater pretty hard, and it’s one of those deaths that I hate to see happen, but can’t deny the power it has in the narrative. Again, it’s telling how much we all seem to like Coulson in that fans were instantly speculating on how he could come back. Maybe he was a Skrull, some argued. Maybe he was an Life Model Decoy, others suggested. Since the Chitauri are a race of Skrulls (albeit of the non-shapeshifting variety) and Stark references the advanced state of LMDs during his initial talk with Coulson, both possibilities are already set up by the film. I thought, too, that perhaps turning Coulson into the Vision would make sense, but after all this speculation that I’ve talked about and thought about and read about, I’m afraid I missed the most obvious way to bring Coulson back.

He’s not dead.

It’s really quite daft on our parts to think he is because his death doesn’t past the tried-and-true comic book sniff test – there’s no body. Fury says the SHIELD docs pronounced him dead, but we don’t see it. We see Coulson get stabbed, see him lose consciousness, but we don’t see the dead body. And most importantly, there’s Fury’s manipulation of Coulson’s death. Both Coulson and Fury knew the team needed something to rally around, and Coulson’s death provided that, but Fury faked the trading card evidence, so who’s to say he didn’t fake Coulson’s death, too. For all we know, Coulson is just lying in a coma in the Helicarrier’s medical wing.

Maybe he is dead, or maybe he’ll show up in the post-credits scene in IRON MAN 3 in his usual gray business suit and sunglasses, trying to get a meeting with Thanos somewhere out in the far recesses of space.

That would be so Coulson.

Whether Coulson is really dead or not, however, Clark Gregg’s superb acting job has helped make Phil one of the best parts of the AVENGERS movies. I talked about his big three moments here, but there’s a bunch of little moments, too, like when he’s listening to Thor talk about the Bilchsteim, or when he calls Tasha during her interrogation by the Russians by calling one of the Russians’ cell phones. Coulson calmly tells the Russian general that SHIELD has all manner of fighter jets just waiting for the order to level the building they’re in unless he puts the Widow on the phone. And then when Tasha gets on the phone, Coulson lets her know that Hawkeye has been compromised. He tells her in just three little words, “Barton’s been compromised,” but Coulson modulates his voice just slight enough that you can hear his sympathy. It’s some darn good acting by Gregg and we never seen his face once during this talk.

Agent Phil Coulson could have been a slightly interesting but ultimately forgettable minor cog in IRON MAN, but someone somewhere on the production side recognized his potential and brought him back. Lots of people would like to buy Clark Gregg a drink, but let’s not forget that unknown producer or writer that saw value in the actor and character and brought them back.

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38 thoughts on “THE AVENGERS: The AGENT COULSON Reaction”

I think your Vision idea is genius. Unlike the Skrull or LMD ones, it manages to bring Coulson back without ruining the impact of his death. It would make for a powerful story if Phil’s brainwaves were used by Ultron (or someone) to create the Vision in order to throw the Avengers up against a foe they’d have real difficulty fighting. Especially characters like Widow and Hawkeye (which could give them more chance to shine).

It’s far enough along that Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish have already turned in 3 drafts to Kevin Feige. Also, Henry Pym was supposed to be explicitly referenced in THOR. If they go ahead with Ant-Man, having Pym do the Vision/Coulson subplot would work splendidly, either as a main plot, or something in the background.

Funny you should mention the ‘he’s just not dead’ angle. I swore you could still see him breathing after he had supposedly died in that scene, in the way you see community theater actors play dead on stage. I sort of dismissed it at the time as either my imagination, or just something the editors missed while cutting together a three hour film. Maybe not…

I am still hoping they go the Vision route though. As Percival said, it would make for some powerful scenes as the film develops, and I just don’t see how you do Avengers without pitting them against Ultron at least once.

What you said in the comments on the original Avengers review, about Thanos maybe setting up an Infinty War style plot instead of going for Ultron or Kang is certainly possible, but it seems like too many still unintroduced moving pieces would still need to fall into place to pull that off for Avengers 2. To do it even close to right you have to, at least, find a way to bring us Adam Warlock and some, if not all of his Infinity Watch group, the Inhumans, bring back the Surfer, tie in the new Spider Man, and probably introduce a few Celestials and uber heavy hitters like Galactus and Beyonder. Doctor Strange would be a solid, if not required part of the mix as well, along with some of the extraterestrial heavies like Gladiator and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

It just all seems like too much, too soon, for a film ‘universe’ that just recently learned they weren’t alone in the cosmos. Now, using the Thanos easter egg as teh start of a build up for Avengers 3… that might give them the time needed to build the world enough for the Infinity Gems to come out and play…

I think you’re coming at a film with Thanos from the wrong direction. You wouldn’t need all those characters to be introduced and in point of fact, you couldn’t have them all. From a legal standpoint, there are characters you just cannot get — Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Silver Surfer, the Fantastic Four, etc. And you couldn’t do a movie like that from a logistical standpoint, either — the characters would be nothing more than background standees and that wouldn’t do anything for the movie.

Another reason is that The Infinity Gauntlet is not a straight-up Avengers story — it’s a Marvel Universe story. Throwing all those characters in it would mean it’s not an Avengers movie.

Instead, what should be done is take elements from The Infinity Gauntlet story and use those elements to tell an Avengers story. And when you come at it from that angle, it becomes far more possible.

True. It still seems a little too epic for the Avengers alone to get into the infinity gems at all, or at least in any way that was more than purely superficial. I could see them skipping over that portion of Thano’s character story and focusing more on his creepy stalker-like obsession with Lady Death.

That was the line, wasn’t it: To go against the heroes of Earth is to court death.

He could seek to do just that, try to win the love of Lady Death by slaying the heroes of earth (and, you know, everyone else on the planet). Even without the gems Thanos is still a titan with powers that outmatch almost anyone. He’s essentially the Marvel version of Darkseid, but without the ridiculous omega beams…

Avengers 2 is supposed to be a bit smaller, so let’s go a bit smaller and by “smaller” I mean “no world-conquering army.” I think this would be a good point to bring in Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil, working to find the Infinity Gems for Thanos. Then the film ends with Thanos donning the Infinity Gauntlet and snapping his fingers. Bright white flash, cut to credits. In the post-credits scene, reveal corpses all around and Thanos just standing there with his arms behind his back, grinning.

Eric, that’s a great catch if Coulson was still breathing. I really need to see the film in 2D after suffering through the darkened 3D experience.

As for Ultron, that’s one of the things that’s so surprising about Thanos – you’d figure they’d go with Ultron or Kang before they ever got to Thanos.

I don’t think we need all those moving parts, though, and not just because they can’t use Surfer, Spidey, or Galactus, as they’re tied up in other deals. I think you could very simply grab a few cosmic villains that aren’t tied up elsewhere, have Thanos grab the Gauntlet from Asgard (just imagine how awesome that seen would be – Thanos strolling into Asgard like he owns the place – and then send his minions after the individual gems.

I am very interested, however, in seeing if some kind of cross-studio promoting turns up. Now that AVENGERS has proven itself a bankable commodity, I wonder if we’ll see things Sony trying to work out a Spidey/Iron Man exchange, or FOX trying to work out a Wolverine/Cap exchange, or farming FANTASTIC FOUR back to Marvel Studios to produce, thereby freeing up some characters to be used in the Marvel-controlled cinematic universe.

You’re probably right that Thanos is more likely to show up in AVENGERS 3 rather than AVENGERS 2, though. Joss has said if he does the sequel (Marvel has an option to bring him back), he wants the film to be a bit quieter so he can do more character development/interaction, so doing a modified Infinity story might be a tad too much.

I doubt it will happen, especially on Fox’s end. They tend to be really pissy when it comes to things like sharing, which is why they threw a fit and hired Ratner to rush out X-Men: The Last Stand instead of simply waiting for Singer to finish Superman Returns.

Now that I think about it, depending on how the rights deals are drawn up, it might be hard to use Kang without totally rewriting his background. If I remember my Avengers and FF correctly, Kang was the time traveling great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of Reed Richards. So if FF are totally verboten in the new MCU then maybe they just skip him.

I like the idea of a slow burn building up to a huge throwdown with Thanos in A3, and I hope that’s where they go with it.

In the meantime, we’ve got at least another Avengers film, Thor 2, Iron Man 3, Cap 2, and projects in various degrees of production (who knows what, if anything, gets made from this pile) for Ant Man, Nick Fury/S.H.I.E.L.D., Hawkeye and Black Widow, Black Panther, Incredible Hulk 2, and even a rumored tv pilot in development for a Luke Cage series. That’s a crap-ton of places to seed plot lines for what is presumed to be the end of an Avengers trilogy.

Honestly, there are things I’d love to see make the screen, but in the end I don’t care as long as they can keep up the quality level they have established thus far. Whatever we get will be worth it.

Kang’s background is a mess. I say don’t even go near it. Take a cue from how he’s handled in Avengers: EHM.

As far as the other films go, Thor 2 and Iron Man 3 are confirmed for 2013, Cap is 2014 and Marvel has another project also hitting in 2014, but they haven’t said what it is yet. Ant-Man is still being developed by Wright, and everything else (including, unfortunately, Hulk 2) is still in early development stages.

I don’t know about a Luke Cage pilot, though. There is an Alias pilot (although retitled as AKA Jessica Jones to avoid confusion with Abrams’ Alias series) in development that will feature Cage as a recurring character, though. A Hulk TV series as well as a few others like Mockingbird and Cloak and Dagger are also in development, but Loeb said that they’re taking their time with TV to make sure they do it right.

Although there’s a rumor going around that Avengers: EHM will be canned and replaced by a new Avengers ‘toon with the line-up from the movie and more in line with Ultimate Spider-Man (including sharing the same continuity). That has me worried, because EHM is the best TV show Marvel has ever put out and Ultimate Spider-Man is among the worst.

My take on the whole Agent Coulson death scene is this: If we didn’t see a funeral, he’s not dead. I fully expect to see him show up in IRON MAN 3 with his hair dyed blond and going by a new name: Agent Jasper Sitwell.

I can already see the scene where Stark is in the lab, in the middle of something crazy with his Iron Man armor, and desperately looking for a screwdriver or something when a hand comes into the screen to hand it to him. Stark says Thanks without looking and then we cut to a shot with Stark in the foreground and Coulson in the background, and he simply says, “You’re welcome.” Then Stark realizes it, his eyes go wide, he spins around, and is like, “Phil?!?!”

Well, I’m gonna’ say it and you all can start hatin’ on me but the death of Coulson ruined the whole movie for me. I’ll be very wary of any more Whedon films. I hope this is his last job on any more Marvel films. Thanks Joss :\

No hate, man. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion and I love disagreement here as long as we all keep it cool and civil, and you’ve certainly done that. I’m pretty sure we’re gonna find out he’s not really dead, though. There have already been reports that he’s scheduled to appear in IRON MAN 3. Maybe it’s a purposeful ruse, but this is a superhero story, and superhero stories never permanently get rid of great characters.

The more I think about it the more I think we’ll see Coulson back. There are so many loopholes that can be used to explain away his “death”. Tony did very significantly mention Life Model Decoys and that can be interpreted as a tip-off to those of us who know what LMDs are. And most telling is Nick Fury’s manipulation of the team with the bloody trading cards. If he didn’t have a problem lying about that then why would he have a problem lying about Coulson being dead? Plain and simple: he wouldn’t. Fury said it himself: the team needed a kick in the pants and he gave it to them. Hey, the cat DID say he he was desperate.

I honestly think it’s to early to bring in Thanos. I just don’t think they are ready yet. I also hope there are 2 more Iron Man movies so IF Coulson happens to show up at then end of Iron Man 3 we have another movie with him in it. Hope Joss steps in for The Avengers sequel. Probably the best movie of the decade! Also, I like how the only thing that was bad about this movie was Coulson dying. Everything else was perfect.

It will be interesting to see if Thanos’ appearance is a sign that he’s the next villain, or if it was just a nice easter egg for fans of the comics. I think they need to build Thanos up over the next handful of solo movies if he’s coming in for AVENGERS 2. I hope Joss is back, too!

I’ve seen The Avengers 3 times now and absolutely enjoyed it. I also enjoyed watching Agent Phil Coulson and hope that the writers and producers of upcoming Avenger movies bring Agent Coulson back. While all of the characters in The Avengers were marvelous, Agent Coulson completed the film. What a loss it would be if Agent Coulson were not to be included in the upcoming films.

I’ve see just about everything that Joss does and it’s true he loves death almost as much as Thanos… just not in the same way (or maybe he does!?!? :P )… So a long time ago I suspected that he would try, somehow, to kill someone.

I know his work well enough and know how studios are about killing off valuable properties. So I knew it wouldn’t be any of the main characters just because he couldn’t. Even if they said “we know how you are so we’ll let you make it look like you killed off Iron Man for 20 minutes,” he simply wouldn’t. Death has to have impact, meaning in his works. Even if death is just so random, senseless or just the reality of living (that death is as certain as taxes).

Joss wouldn’t want to kill off someone who’d have to be brought back to life to fight the big fight and be ok at the end of it all. It’s really kind of cheep to do so within one episode or one movie. So he had to kill someone people would believe would be dead. It also needed to be someone of value. Marvel may have never intended it, but in Coulson, they gave Joss the perfect character.

Coulson became a breakout character and Joss loves and knows how to use these characters to maximum effect. They bring something unexpected to him as a writer and give him new possibilities he might not of otherwise imagined. Simply, Agent Phil Coulson came to life because of Clark Gregg. Frankly, had he been a nobody agent that fans didn’t care about, Joss wouldn’t of wasted his time even if Marvel said “Hey, we know how you are and you can kill Coulson deader that a doornail.”

Sure, Joss kills of his share of “red shirts,” but he knows what value it can bring when you kill off someone important enough to the fans and other characters. That such a death will bring meaning and make the story all that much better. He likely would have had a hard time figuring out who, if anybody he could kill and the movie wouldn’t of been as good because of it.

Now… I don’t know what Marvel actually said to him when he told them what he wanted to do. Regardless, the choices are that you either kill the character off for good or be horrendously crafty about it. Even if Marvel did say yes, I honestly don’t believe Joss really DIDN’T Kill Coulson. I think this because in the movie itself, Fury and Coulson basically “meta” the thoughts inside Whedon’s head. They realized that his death, the death of someone known to and perhaps, beloved by some, could make the team come together.

This is believable considering that most every one of the Avengers has a relationship with him of some sort. Even Cap’ who didn’t know him before this movie was moved. He might have been a little creeped out by Coulson’s fan-boyness at first and was generally dealing with a lot of disconnect issues, but the death of this guy moved him as well.

Joss could have had the characters standing around his body (even if Disney didn’t want to show a dead body), but they didn’t. Instead they tell us he’s dead and we see fury manipulating this “death.” It was good enough to because it really does leave most people thinking he was really dead. Some might have expected that if he wasn’t he’d be spotted in the extra post credit scenes, but wasn’t. So most people think he’s dead.

Others here have suggested that there are ways, some (overly compliacted) ways to bring him back (Life Model Decoy), but I think it’s simpler and I saw something else that says to me that he’s not dead.

At the end, after hill has confronted Fury about the Captain America cards, she turn and walks away. The scene cuts away to a high camera angle and you see the bridge and a bunch of people going about their jobs. You see Hill walk off and an someone walking towards Fury…. and Agent…

If you watch real closely before the end credits you see an agent wearing a suit and tie walk up to Fury on the bridge of the hover-carrier as the camera shot fades out. Everyone else is wearing those fancy SHIELD uniforms and you can’t get a close enough look to tell but it looks like a guy wearing the suit and it stands out. I am convinced this is Coulson still alive.

That was not Coulson. There were other people on the helicarrier wearing suits, albeit there were more people in uniforms than suits, but Coulson wasn’t the only one wearing a suit. Also, that suit guy who walked past Maria Hill was taller than her, which Coulson was not. And lastly, the guy just wasn’t Coulson!

Phil Coulson was done really well. I agree with your comments on how initially he had a small role that could have just been a one time deal but evolved into a bigger role. And it wasn’t like he suddenly became major character, with each film he had a slightly bigger role that accumulated into the Avengers.

There is one thing though, I wish he had some sort of interaction with Bruce Banner. Bruce is the only one on the team who didn’t have any connection with Coulson. So Nick Fury using his death to bring the Avengers together only works with Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye and Black Widow. Hulk is the odd one out. But it was such a big film that it was understandable that it couldn’t be done.